DAY 1: TAKING STOCK continued…
12. In your notebook, draw a little box with an amoeba that fills up 70 percent of the box, but also goes outside of the box. The box is your job, and the amoeba is you. The empty spots in the box are where we often focus all of our effort, but perhaps you should focus on the part of the amoeba that lies outside of the box, as this represents your strengths.
13. Ask yourself this simple question: How have you aged over the last five years? Use a picture to compare how you looked between then and now. Your initial thought:
- My oh my, I look like I did in high school, dahling.
- I'm steady Eddie—about the same.
- I'm about what you'd expect—little fatter, little wrinklier, and little more worn down.
- I look like tree bark.
14. Ask yourself this: What activities did you do five years ago that you can't do today?
15. Ask yourself these big-picture stress questions, which can help you identify things to work on while using our program:
- Is your perceived level of stress more than you enjoy? Remember that actual stress is a more predictable driver of aging than our perception of stress, so push yourself to be honest with yourself.
- Do you control most of the stress in your life or are you a rat in someone else's experiment?
